I can never forget that day.

The day when my grandpa died.

I was only 8.

He called me to his bedside and whispered to me, in a voice feeble yet somewhat unsatisfied.

He said to me, "My lovely grandson, I have nothing to give you in this life, as I have been poor and unfortunate,"

"Money and fortune, women and sex, lush and class, I can give you none."

I wasn't feeling any bit of dissapoint, as I knew very well of him, of his life, of his potential, of the legacy he could leave to his descendants.

And then there was, as I remembered correctly, a short silence.

"Except for this."

My hand was tightly grabbed and, the next thing I remembered, was a 4-GB-black-Kingston-flash-drive-like object being secretly put in my hand, so secretly that not even the people around me had noticed.

"Finish my life's work." Those were his last words.

After years and years of attempting to figure out just what that only file in the flash drive was, here I was, sitting in front of my laptop, Civ 5 was released.

The next thing happened can only explained by me as providence: I copied the file to civ 5 save folder, opened civ 5, attempted to load the file.

It loaded.

It was a Marathon game, on its 284th turn.

There was only one city left, and it was surrounded by enemies' scouts.

The city health bar was already depleted, and I had 23 workers that were, even the closest ones, at least ten tiles away from my city.

........................................

Years have passed.

There is, like the beginning, only one city left.

Except that one city, is the only one not owned by me.

My right hand trembled as I reached the "Annex the city" button, never knowing the cause of the tremble being either years of non-stop playing, or the fact that I am now only one button away from fulfilling my grandfather's wish.

I looked out the window, tears in both my eyes formed two vertical lines across my face.

Noticed the image in the window, the reflection of yet another old man with eyeful of tears, crying, yet satisfied.

I stared at the blue sky, whispered:

"I finished your work, grandpa."